American manned lunar orbiter. Study 1965. The Apollo Experiments Pallet was a sophisticated instrument payload that would have been installed in the Apollo CSM for dedicated lunar or earth orbital resource assessment missions.

Study contracts were let to Lockheed, Martin, McDonnell, and Northrop, but with cutbacks to Apollo the concept never proceeded to the hardware stage.

Lunar Orbiters Manned lunar orbiters and orbiting stations were rarely designed for this purpose alone, but usually used in a lunar-orbit rendezvous lunar landing scenario together with a separate lunar lander. They were more powerful than circumlunar manned spacecraft in that they required substantial propellant to brake into and get out of lunar orbit. More...

Saturn I American orbital launch vehicle. Von Braun launch vehicle known as 'Cluster's Last Stand' - 8 Redstone tanks around a Jupiter tank core,powered by eight Jupiter engines. Originally intended as the launch vehicle for Apollo manned circumlunar flights. However it was developed so early, no payloads were available for it. More...

Apollo Experiments Pallet Phase I - .
Nation: USA. Program: Apollo. Spacecraft: Apollo Experiments Pallet. George E. Mueller, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, notified MSC Director Robert R. Gilruth that NASA Administrator James E. Webb and Associate Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr., had selected Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, The Martin Company, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, and Northrop Corporation for Phase I of the Apollo Experiments Pallet Procurement. The contracts would be for four months and each would be valued at about $375,000.

1966 August 22 - .

Apollo experiment pallet cancelled - .
Nation: USA. Program: Apollo. Spacecraft: Apollo Experiments Pallet. NASA informed four firms that had completed design studies on the Apollo experiment pallet that there would be no hardware development and fabrication of the pallet. The four firms had been selected in November 1965 to make four-month studies of a pallet to carry experiments in the spacecraft SM during the Apollo manned lunar landings. The firms were Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., Sunnyvale, Calif.; The Martin Co., Denver, Colo.; McDonnell Aircraft Corp., St. Louis, Mo.; and Northrop Space Laboratories, Hawthorne, Calif.